Here is the New There

The dominant cultural assumptions and Misunderstandings about heaven have been at work for so long, it’s almost automatic for many to think of heaven as ethereal, intangible, esoteric, and immaterial.

Floaty, dreamy, hazy. Somewhere else.

People in white robes with perfect hair floating by on clouds, singing in perfect pitch. (Rob Bell, Love Wins, 56-57)

In this short quote Bell has summed up the problem Christians have had for some time regarding heaven and the next life. The vision described above is essentially Gnostic, a teaching NOT in keeping with traditional Christianity. How it crept into the Christian imagination is a story too long to recount here.

Bell takes us back to the Old Testament. He takes us back to Jewish people and how they imagined the world and the age to come. He cites a several prophets (Isa. 11; Ezek. 36; Amos 9) who all seem to think that the next age is not a leap off into never, never land, but is a leap into the very place where they were currently living, only one that was full of grace, mercy, and justice.

The next age is not envisioned as one in which people go off to heaven to be with God (although I will admit that the Bible does suggest that this does happen in a temporary way), but the new age is one in which heaven comes down among humans (see Rev. 21:2). This is why we get so much talk in the New Testament about God renewing, redeeming, restoring, and reconciling (see my BLOG). Of course someone will mention that God says that he is going to destroy the earth in 2 Peter 3:10. To read about this go to this part of my BLOG.

Simply put, God plans to redeem his creation that has been distorted by sin. That does not simply mean that God is going to redeem humanity, but will, in fact, redeem it all (read Romans 8). He is going to take back his creation that he said was “Good” from the beginning. Humans were never meant to live in a disembodied state in some disembodied place. We were meant for earth, but we were meant for an uncorrupted earth – something that God will bring about in the future.

Some might ask what difference it makes. As long as I’m with God and evil has been destroyed, what do I care if it is up on some cloud or here on a renewed earth? But Bell is right in saying that how we understand eschatology (the study of last things) makes a difference in how we practice ethics. For instance, if someone imagines that God is going to burn this place up and take us off to some nebulous, floaty existence, then they might imagine that it doesn’t really matter what we do with this planet. “Let’s pollute it and exploit it for all it’s worth because God is going to burn it up anyway”.

But is that why God gave the planet into our care? Is that what it means for us to oversee it? And did God intend for us to ignore the next generation by exploiting the planet for the use of this generation? And did God intend for those in wealthy nations to exploit the planet so that those who are poor around the world will drink polluted water and breathe polluted air?

Do we somehow imagine that we can be the kind of people who exploit the planet and others for our benefit but that somehow we will magically be changed to NOT be that way when we “Go to heaven”? Bell is right in saying “Jesus makes no promises that in the blink of an eye we will suddenly become totally different people who have vastly different tastes, attitudes, and perspectives”. Rather, we are being shaped on earth to be what God wants us to be in the next age. This is in keeping with Jesus’ prayer that God’s will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. When this happens and the new age arrives, we will not be out of place.

I think Rob Bell is right on in his descriptions of heaven and the next life. I believe he has gotten this right both textually and theologically. As I mentioned above, I have Blogged on this previously and details of those discussions can be found there. Lest anyone should imagine that these ideas are something weird conjured up by a wild Pastor in Michigan or an unknown Minister in California, I would direct you to a world renowned New Testament scholar who makes the exact same point (N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope). I would also direct you to C.S. Lewis who addresses these matters in narrative in The Great Divorce.